‘You need to leave, Leah,’ he said. ‘You need to go to Paul and talk to him about what is happening here, make a plan, help those girls.’

‘Nothing is happening here,’ I said, words spoken automatically as my mind ran the truth on a loop – a truth I had always held within me.

Paul left because he knows. Paul left because he knows. Paul left because he knows.

‘Remove the beam from your eye, Leah,’ my father said. ‘Don’t be afraid to see.’

‘All will be well,’ I persisted, ‘a boat will come.’

‘It is too late for me, but not for you.’

‘All will be well.’ It was a prayer now, a mantra. ‘All will be well. All will be well.’

‘Be not deceived,’ he told me, a last clutch at scripture. ‘God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’

And then he fell silent.

And then he was gone – my father, dead; the Lark I knew dead with him.

Friday the 13th – April 2018

FRIDAY THE 13TH – APRIL 2018

Viola is downstairs again in the quiet of the cottage, standing in front of Leah’s mantelpiece. She is ready to move on.

When Leah and Saul return, Leah will be a mess and Viola doesn’t want to be here for that. Never return to a firework once it’s lit.

Before she goes, she turns the Cedars family portrait face down. Peter Cedars’ gaze is what she cannot bear. He would be furious at what she is doing, dragging his daughter into all of this, but Viola refuses to shoulder any guilt. She turns away from the mantelpiece.

Leah Cedars was not dragged into anything. Leah Cedars inserted herself, made promises she had no intention of keeping. She had told Viola and the Eldest Girls that she was named for a woman in the bible who was skilled at deception; that meant, by implication, so was she. It should have come as no surprise that Leah was leading them on, using them to get exactly what she wanted.

‘She deserves everything she gets,’ Viola tells Dot, snatching up the dog’s lead.

They head through the kitchen, out the back door, the rhythm of Dot’s claws against the hard-standing familiar and comforting.

Viola knows where she must go next – to the very seat of justice – because it is time for the island to wake up. To really wake up.

Out the back gate they go, into the ginnel that runs between the two lines of cottages. They must sprint again; St Rita’s bell will ring soon.

But a hand is there, on Viola’s shoulder, before she can pick up any pace. It is a powerful grip, one that spins her around.

‘Where are they?’ is the demand hissed into Viola’s face. ‘Where are the Eldest Girls?’

December 2017

DECEMBER 2017

Christmas came and went at the Reunyon Farmstead without mention.